


(i promise this is personal)

by astralpenguin



Series: 3am [9]
Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Asexual Character, Asexual Yagami Light, Canon Compliant, Demiromantic Yagami Light, Greyromantic Yagami Light, Hurt No Comfort, Internalized Acephobia, Internalized Aphobia, Internalized Arophobia, M/M, Post-Yotsuba Arc (Death Note), Yagami Light is Kira, Yotsuba Arc (Death Note)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28265301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralpenguin/pseuds/astralpenguin
Summary: Higuchi was dead, the notebook was his again, and his name had finally been cleared.And Light remembered everything.(not recommended as a standalone)
Relationships: L/Yagami Light
Series: 3am [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640104
Comments: 8
Kudos: 69





	(i promise this is personal)

**Author's Note:**

> this is the second of two possible endings to this series, both being posted at the same time, so pick your favourite!!!
> 
> heads up, light's thoughts on his asexuality and aromanticism in this are not remotely healthy. don't look at this particular installment of the series for 'good ace rep', look back on the other fics in this series for that. the tags about internalised ace/aro/aphobia are very serious

It was approaching 3am when things finally started to settle down.

Light’s plan had gone off without a hitch. Higuchi  _ had  _ made the eye deal midway through the evening, which had been a slight snag in the taskforce’s plan, but they’d adapted well enough, and it didn’t make much difference to Light either way.

If he stopped to think about it, he  _ was  _ glad that Matsuda was okay.

More importantly, Higuchi was dead, the notebook was his again, and his name had finally been cleared.

And Light remembered everything.

Despite L’s promise not to trust him today, he’d allowed Light to cross reference the names in the notebook to the names of the dead, and in doing so he’d allowed Light to kill Higuchi and take ownership of the notebook himself.

Kira was back.

Nothing that had happened while he was away mattered.

They were sat in the main taskforce HQ. L had been working through the night, updating interested parties on the case, negotiating with everyone who wanted to publicise Kira’s identity and fate so that they wouldn’t, double checking that the names written in the notebook with the names of the dead, and a whole host of other things that Light couldn’t begin to think of. For a while the taskforce (plus Aizawa) had been helping out where they could, until L ordered them all to go home at around 1am.

Light had helped out too at first, but after a while L had commented that he must be tired, and that he could stop for the night. Light hadn’t seen any reason to fight against this, so he’d complied, content to sit back and watch L run himself a little ragged.

No. That was a lie.

Before his confinement, before he’d had to go without his memories for an extended length of time, that would’ve been true. He’d hated L and he would’ve relished any chance to see him suffer.

He wasn’t so sure if that was still true, and he didn’t know who out of L and his amnesiac self was more to blame.

The chain between them clinked against the desk as L typed.

L’s brow was furrowed in concentration, his eyes not straying away from the screen in front of him for even a moment. One of the phones sitting next to the keyboard started to ring, piercing the quiet that before had only avoided becoming silent due to the tapping of L’s fingers on keys, and L had it up by his ear in an instant.

Light looked away, towards the only other living thing in the room.

Rem stood alone in the middle of the otherwise empty room, watching them carefully.

She obviously knew that Light had his memories back. Higuchi dying of a heart attack could only have been because of him. Ryuk had mentioned there being a rule against a shinigami killing a human that another shinigami was haunting, and Higuchi’s natural lifespan would’ve been set to end far enough in the future that his death now could only be because someone had used a Death Note. The only person who could’ve done that was Light himself. Ergo, he had his memories back, and she knew it.

And she also knew that, so long as she kept playing her part, Misa would be safe.

Even if she’d figured out where this would end for her, she’d do it without protest.

People did stupid things when they were in love.

Light didn’t think that Rem was any exception to that.

“Do you have a name?” he asked.

The only reason why Light knew that Rem was raising an eyebrow at him was because he’d known her before, and had seen her make a range of expressions before. If this had been his first time seeing her he didn’t think he’d have caught it.

“Yes,” she said. “I do.”

“What is it?”

“You may call me Rem.”

“Hi Rem,” he said with a smile. “My name is-”

“I know who you are, Light Yagami.”

Light put on a confused expression. “How do you know my name?”

“All shinigami can see the full names of people above their heads. I know the names of every human that I have ever seen.”

“And you were able to transfer this ability to Kira?” asked L, spinning his chair around so that he, too, was facing Rem.

Rem nodded. “If a human gives half of their remaining lifespan to a shinigami, then their eyes are transformed to be like that of a shinigami. The human will be able to see other humans’ names and lifespans, although I am yet to know of a human who can understand the way that humans’ lifespans are written.”

L nibbled on the end of his thumb. “What are your pronouns?”

Rem shifted her head so that she was looking solely at L. “What?”

“I assume you would rather not keep getting called  _ it  _ all the time? You will need to tell us which pronouns to use instead.”

That was a very good point. Everybody who didn’t already know Rem had probably been referring to her as a creature, or a monster, and the question of gender wasn’t likely to have occurred to them. If Light had referred to her out loud it could’ve landed him in a lot of trouble. He was lucky not to have done so.

There was a pause as Rem considered the question.

“I use she and her.”

L nodded. “Thank you.”

They spoke a little longer with Rem, but nothing of any real substance was said. Rem was keeping to her role better than Light had expected her too, and nothing she said gave any indication that the first Kira was in the room.

It was almost a shame to kill her, but this point there was no other way.

Eventually L called it a night, and led Light out of the room.

He expected L to head towards the elevator, but instead L veered off to the left and down a corridor that Light hadn’t been down before.

“Ryuuzaki?”

They reached a door and L pushed it open.

Inside the door was a computer with lots of screens. It wasn’t unlike the one in the main HQ room, but this one had about half as many screens as that one did. As the door opened more fully and Light got a better look inside, the chair at the desk turned around to reveal Watari.

“What are we doing here?” asked Light.

Watari stood and retrieved a small key from his pocket.

“I recall promising both Matsuda and your father that when they return in the morning you would no longer be handcuffed,” said L. “I am sure that I can trust you not to use your newfound freedom to try and use the notebook.”

Light nodded quickly, channeling how his amnesiac self would’ve acted. “You can. I don’t want to go anywhere near that thing.”

Watari unlocked Light’s cuff first, before moving on to L’s.

It felt weird.

He hadn’t truly been  _ himself  _ through the many months that the handcuff had been on his wrist, so in a way he’d only had to experience wearing it for a few hours. But he’d still lived through the months with it on and in that time his body had grown used to it. There was a phantom weight around his wrist that wouldn’t dissipate no matter how much he rubbed.

They thanked Watari and left the room.

“Will you still be wanting to sleep in the same room tonight?”

“What?” said Light. “Oh, that. Uh, I think I’d rather spend tonight alone. Just because it’s been a while, and-”

“Of course,” said L. “I understand.”

They didn’t say anything else as they made their way upstairs.

They walked down the corridor that their - that L’s - bedroom was on, but stopped a few doors away.

“This room was set aside for you,” said L.

“Okay,” said Light. “I guess I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

“Yes,” said L. “I’ll see you then.”

Light nodded.

Then, before he could think better of it, he pressed a quick kiss to L’s lips before ducking into his new room and closing the door behind him.

He pressed his back against the door and slid to the floor.

He didn’t know if he was going to be able to do this.

When he said that his plan had gone off without a hitch, that wasn’t entirely true.

There was a hitch.

And it was a pretty major hitch.

His amnesiac self had gone and fallen in love with L.

_ L. _

The guy he was supposed to be killing.

Light could honestly say that he hadn’t seen this coming.

He’d never liked anyone before. Not ever.

It had used to upset him. He’d used to look around at the adult world and see the majority of people were either paired up or wanted to be. He’d look at his parents and see that they were disgustingly in love. He’d look at his sister and see her get a crush on every vaguely cute guy (or girl, not that she’d admit out loud that her appreciation for girls were crushes) she happened to lay her eyes on. He’d look at his peers and see them fall in and out of love, and hear them talk all about the sex they were either having or desparately wanted to have.

He’d never wanted any of that.

He’d wanted to want it. He’d wanted to be normal. He’d wanted to get a crush on someone, or want to have sex with someone, so badly. He’d wanted to at least be gay so there’d at least be something quantifiable there. But he didn’t want it, and he wasn’t normal, and he’d known that he’d just have to fake it for a girl someday so that he could pretend to live a normal life.

Everything had made a lot more sense once he’d found the Death Note.

There was a  _ reason  _ why he didn’t get distracted by trivial things like sex and romance. It was because he was a God, and any God who wanted those things was asking for trouble.

Just look at Rem. She was in love, and it would be her death.

Light had been born to become God.

That was why he never got attracted to anyone.

They were all beneath him.

But of course L had to screw  _ this  _ up as well.

Light’s amnesiac self had fallen for L.

He’d actually found someone that he liked romantically, that he loved, that he wanted to hold and kiss and spend time with.

And that person was L.

Even now, with all his memories returned to him, Light still cared about him.

He didn’t think that he’d ever been angrier in his life.

How dare he.

How dare L make him feel like this.

How dare  _ he  _ be so stupid as to fall for it.

Obviously his amnesiac self wouldn’t have had any idea how important it was that he never felt like this towards anyone. Light hadn’t been able to accept his fate of never being genuinely attracted to someone until he found the Death Note, so without those memories he would’ve been stuck thinking about it again. That it had been on his mind was fine. He’d known that that would happen.

It’s just that it was  _ supposed  _ to make the feeling of regaining his memories, and remembering  _ why _ he was different to other people, taste even sweeter.

Instead he was stuck with awful mushy feelings towards a man who he wanted dead.

If anything, it made him want L dead even more.

He was just glad they hadn’t fucked.

If Light had woken up in that helicopter to the knowledge that he and L had been fucking then he might’ve written his  _ own  _ name down on the paper rather than Higuchi’s. The concept that his biggest enemy could’ve touched him in that way was repulsive to him.

A tiny, traitorous part of his mind told him that no, it wasn’t really all that repulsive at all, and that when he hadn’t had his memories he’d felt safe enough with L that he wouldn’t have minded it so much if they  _ had _ ended up having sex, and a lot of that feeling of safety had come from the fact that L respected that Light didn’t want to.

He’d really felt  _ safe  _ with L.

L who’d locked him in a cell for fifty days, and then kept the two of them handcuffed together for months.

Had Light really allowed himself to get tricked into feeling safe with that man?

Apparently so.

How could he be so stupid?

He wished that L had never told him about asexuality.

His amnesiac self had found comfort in the fact that he wasn’t alone, that there were other people like him, that he wasn’t broken. His amnesiac self had desperately wanted reassurance that there wasn’t anything wrong with him and that he didn’t have to do anything that he didn’t want to do.

He didn’t find any comfort in that now.

His lack of sexual attraction was supposed to be a mark of his Godhood.

L had torpedoed that with his explanation, and had wrecked his lack of romantic attraction by existing.

And here he was now using terms like ‘romantic attraction’ and ‘sexual attraction’ as if they were normal things that meant anything at all, and it was all L’s fault.

Damn L. Damn him to hell. How fucking dare he.

Light wiped the tears away from his face. He didn’t know when he’d started crying, but he knew that it had to stop. Gods didn’t cry, and if one of his Godly traits was gone then he could at least try and not lose the other ones.

None of this truly changed anything.

He was probably going to have to fuck Misa at some point, but he’d accepted that a long time ago. It wouldn’t be pleasant but it would make her compliant. He’d cope.

L was still going to die. Rem was still going to kill him. Misa was still going to start killing again. Kira still would live on.

These aggravating feelings for L would go away once he was dead. Or, if they didn’t, they’d be irrelevant by that point anyway and wouldn’t matter anymore.

With L alive there was a chance that loving him could make Light have second thoughts. If he was honest with himself, there had already been some second thoughts that he’d had to push down. Once L was dead then he’d be dead. There wouldn’t be any reversing it. He’d be gone, and Light would’ve won.

Light had wanted L dead from the moment Lind L Tailor had appeared on the TV screen that day. Falling in love with him didn’t make him want L dead any less.

It’s just that before his confinement it had been strictly business. Kira had needed to kill L. _ Light _ hadn’t had anything to do with it.

But now?

Now it was personal.

**Author's Note:**

> to reiterate, light's views here on being aspec are Not Good
> 
> pls comment lmao
> 
> come say [hi!!!](https://astralpenguin.tumblr.com/)


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